Exploiting Body-Driven Feedbacks in Physical Unclonable Functions for Ultra Low Voltage, Ultra Low Power Applications: A 0.3 V Weak-PUF

This paper introduces an innovative approach to designing a mismatched current mirror with a fully unbalanced output, significantly reducing the minimum supply voltage requirements for Regulated Cascode Current Mirror (RCCM) Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs). Leveraging body-driven feedback mechanisms, the proposed circuit reliably operates with supply voltages as low as 0.3V, maintaining stable power consumption through a reference bias current. The resulting PUF achieves remarkable energy efficiency, consuming only 0.3 fJ per bit, without compromising statistical performance. It exhibits a response bias of 49.42%, a reliability of 99.483%, and a uniqueness of 50.176%. Validation of this novel approach is conducted through simulations and measurements on a 130nm CMOS test-chip, considering a nominal supply voltage of 0.3V,
$\pm$
10% supply voltage variations, and a temperature range from 0
$^{\circ}$
C to 75
$^{\circ}$
C. Rigorous experimental verification on 20 chip samples, along with detailed explanations of design methodologies, underscores the robustness and practicality of the proposed Body-PUF design. Comparative analyses against state-of-the-art literature reveal that the Body-PUF outperforms previous PUF designs in Figures of Merit (FOM), making it promising for real-world authentication scenarios. Its outstanding trade-off between performance and practicality positions it as a compelling solution for secure applications, including Internet of Things (IoT) devices and other security-critical systems.